


beati possidentes

by Kyele



Series: ad infinitum [3]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Anal Sex, M/M, Sex, Speedster Sex, mostly just sex, speed mirage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 08:30:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9430145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyele/pseuds/Kyele
Summary: If you beat your last time by three percent or better, I’ll make it worth your while,Eobard murmurs seductively where no one but the two of them could hear.And if not?Barry dares to ask.Eobard’s smile is felt as well as seen, slow and lazy.Then maybe you’ll have to make it worth my while.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to be the start of a multichapter sequel to _tempus fugit_ , but after writing this (some time ago actually) I realized that I didn't have nearly enough ready in terms of plot and character management to write the rest. Additionally, this series is meant to be near-canon AU, and the current season of the Flash is... not suited to this? Let's put it that way. So I tidied this up a bit and am releasing it as a standalone, since after all, it's mostly sex. Enjoy!
> 
> Title meaning 'blessed are those who possess'. (Those of you who followed me from Musketeers fandom knew the Roman liturgical Latin was going to show up sooner or later!)

“Remind me again why we’re doing this,” Barry says grumpily, staring out at the lights illuminating the STAR Labs proving grounds at night.

“Because the last time we had a serious fight against a serious opponent, almost the first thing he did was target these,” Eobard says, tapping the device resting around the back of his neck. To the uninitiated, it looks like a Bluetooth headset, and no one remarks upon seeing Dr. Harrison Wells or Barry Allen wear one everywhere they go. But Barry has to admit that seeing them on the Flash or the Reverse Flash – Central City’s resident superheroes – is a different story. They’re not glaringly obvious, but neither are they unobtrusive against the bright red of Barry’s suit or the yellow of Eobard’s. They’re visible in any photo of them the Central City Picture-News runs. At least, the ones where either of the Flashes are visible at all as anything more than a streak of lightning.

It’s already led the city’s journalists to guess, shrewdly enough, that the Flashes are using the devices to stay in communication with each other, though where they’re hiding their cell phones in their skintight suits is apparently a point of ongoing debate. No one outside the loop has yet guessed what the devices _really_ are. But just the temptation of breaking up the Flashes’ legendary coordination would be enough to make the devices an attractive target for an enemy looking to take them both down. And given that the devices are actually much more than that – given that they’re responsible for Eobard’s ability to reliably access the speed force at all, and Barry’s ability to _match_ Eobard’s ordinarily much greater speed – the last thing either of them wants is for the devices to be a target.

As Eobard has just pointed out, that had gone rather poorly for them last time.

But: “I thought that was why we were working on the subdural implants,” Barry protests. Future nanotech is impressive, and thanks to the connection-sharing devices, Barry and Eobard can drop by the future equivalent of Radio Shack from time to time. Not quite at will. It does still take a lot of energy to time-jump, unless one is cheating with a particle accelerator, which they’re not quite willing to do, given the dangers inherent in using one. No one wants to risk a black hole swallowing Central City because Eobard had mentioned in Hartley’s hearing that someone had finally wrangled the rights to the _Shining Force_ series away from Sega and a fourth installment had been released in 2243. Nor does anyone want to leave Central City undefended because both of its superheroes are sleeping off the effects of a time-jump made solely under their own steam.

But for this, they’d made an exception. The Bluetooth-headset shell had been necessary, when Eobard had first built these devices. With the exception of the power supply, which had fallen through a small rip in time and space courtesy of an alternate timeline Barry fucking with the timestream, the devices are built with 21st-century technology. Which means they’re big, by Eobard’s standards. But Eobard’s original blueprint dates from his home century, and there had already been indications that nanotech would be the future. A few shrewd guesses, a new schematic, and a trip to the 23rd century had resulted in all the raw materials necessary to build two copies of the device that will be about the size of a fingernail and can be inserted under the skin – invisible, undetectable to 21st-century technology, and hopefully much more durable. Certainly much less targetable.

Barry and Eobard had both slept for a week straight after returning for that trip, which had been more or less as their calculations had all predicted. Caitlin had had the beds ready in the medlab and the team had taken turns changing out the IV bags on schedule. Cisco had made a joke about having _two_ lab mascots now, which only he and Hartley had thought at all funny. Thankfully, it had been a quiet week on the supervillain front, though the risk had had everyone at STAR Labs nervous. But it will have been worth it once these devices are made.

Now Eobard sighs. “Yes, we’re working on those, but they’re not going to be ready tomorrow, Barry. We had to invent an entirely new fabrication process just to work with the tech. As for the software – have you ever tried to cross-compile for a quantum computer?”

“No,” Barry admits.

“Our test and debug loops are taking a _week_ ,” Eobard says. “We should have bought a computer while we were in the future.”

“I thought Gideon was a quantum computer?”

“ _She_ is, but she’s just the central node of a distributed system. All her processing power comes from Amazon Web Services.”

“Ouch.”

“It’s a good thing we’re rich.”

“So what you’re saying is – ”

“It’s going to be a while before the new devices are ready. Yes. And until they are, relying on them is dangerous. Which means _you_ need to practice getting faster, independent of me.”

Barry rolls his shoulders. He looks again down the fluorescent-lit runway of the abandoned regional airport that is now the STAR Labs proving grounds and nods. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

Eobard reaches out to the device around Barry’s neck. Before he quite gets there, he lets his hands rest on Barry’s shoulders, and leans forward to kiss Barry gently.

_If you beat your last time by three percent or better, I’ll make it worth your while,_ Eobard murmurs seductively where no one but the two of them could hear.

The speed force doesn’t quite offer true telepathy – it’s not words that it allows its connected speedsters to share, but sensations, images, feelings. Barry shivers from head to toe with the sensations Eobard is transmitting.

_And if not?_ he dares to ask.

Eobard’s smile is felt as well as seen, slow and lazy. _Then maybe you’ll have to make it worth_ my _while._

_Sold,_ Barry whispers back, as Eobard reaches around to the back of Barry’s neck and flicks the device off.

* * *

Barry’s back hits the sheets at speed, scarlet and gold lightning crackling over his skin as Eobard drops them both onto his palatial bed. _Their_ bed, more often than not, though there’s still a room at Joe West’s house that’s nominally Barry’s. It makes Joe happy to keep a space for Barry. And this thing between Barry and Eobard is still so new that Barry fears sometimes that it can’t last, though that’s just fear talking, and Barry knows it. Through the speed force connection they share, devices once against active for them both, Barry can feel the rock-solid steadiness of Eobard’s love. They’re not perfect, neither of them are perfect, and they’ve both done a lot to hurt each other. As these connections prove, for they’d never be necessary if the alternate Barry hadn’t maimed Eobard. As Barry’s bedroom in Joe West’s house proves, for it would never be necessary if Eobard hadn’t murdered Nora Allen. But though neither of them will forget, neither will they permit those things to overshadow what they’ve built together. They’ve sworn as much to each other, and each of them can feel how deeply the other means it.

Right now Barry’s thoughts aren’t on their mutually-inflicted scars. Most of his capacity for rational thought has gone offline as Eobard kisses him. Trails scarlet-wreathed fingers down the sensitive dips of Barry’s ribs and sucks a bruise into the junction of Barry’s hip.

Barry tries to shimmy down himself, thinking he’ll seize the upper hand and get his mouth on Eobard’s beautiful cock, but his aching muscles have another idea. Barry curses through gritted teeth as they pull and twinge and generally put the kibosh on any such maneuver.

Eobard looks up then, grinning. _Sore?_

_And not in the good way,_ Barry sighs.

_Flip over._ When Barry raises an eyebrow, Eobard sends wicked confidence. _Trust me._

In the face of such a challenge, Barry doesn’t hesitate. He flips onto his stomach. It costs him a groan, but the warmth from Eobard more than makes up for it.

At least, until Eobard’s hands on his shoulders make him shriek.

_Relax,_ Eobard murmurs, sending calm and lassitude through the link. _Don’t tense up, you’re making it worse._

Barry manages a breathless laugh at the unintentional innuendo. _Easier said than done._

Eobard hums in thoughtful agreement, digging a thumb into a muscle at the base of Barry’s neck that makes everything go white for a second. _And yet, when followed, good things occur._

Barry is reduced to a muffled whimper when Eobard continues his merciless reign of terror, moving from shoulders (breathtakingly painful) down to the muscles in between Barry’s shoulderblades (agonizing) down further to the base of Barry’s spine (outright torture banned by the Geneva convention). Barry hangs on, breathing through it, until Eobard runs a soothing hand over sensitive skin and Barry hisses, pain suddenly transforming into something that sets every nerve alight.

Eobard’s grin is felt rather than seen, but that makes it no less toothy and satisfied when Eobard digs his knuckles in on either side of Barry’s spine and Barry whines, shoving back into Eobard’s hands in a shameless bid for more. Barry should have known that wouldn’t be permitted – would have known, if he’d been thinking straight – but it still feels desperately unfair when Eobard _tsks_ and moves to sit astraddle Barry’s hips. Eobard’s fully hard cock nestles between Barry’s cheeks, a tantalizing tease while Barry, equally hard, has his cock pinned so thoroughly between his own stomach and Eobard’s sheets that he can’t get a micron of friction.

_Now, now, there you are tensing up again,_ Eobard scolds. _What did I tell you?_

Barry manages to wrench his neck to the side before he either breaks his nose or suffocates against the suddenly unforgiving sheets. He pants wetly, the tail end of a neighboring pillowcase fluttering with every exhale. _Please,_ he manages, voice too far gone to do anything but whimper. _Please, I need –_

Eobard drags the heel of his palm straight down Barry’s spine. Barry tries to shriek as several vertebrae pop back into place. _I know what you need,_ Eobard says, far too calmly. If he were speaking out loud, Barry thinks, he’d be breathless, but in the speed force he manages to project an aura of control that has Barry shivering in unabashed need. _You needn’t fear I won’t give it to you, in its full measure, in exactly the time and place is it best served._

_What I need is a little friction – ah!_

Eobard is admiring the red handprint left on Barry’s ass. He’s slid back to sit on Barry’s thighs. Now he shakes his head.

_That’s what you_ want _,_ Eobard says, stern but loving. _That’s not what you need._

God help him, Eobard’s right. Eobard may have his hand on the small of Barry’s back to hold him in place, but that doesn’t provide anywhere near the leverage Eobard had commanded while sitting on Barry’s ass: Barry could move, now, if he wanted to. Could buck Eobard off and rut against the sheets until he spilled all over them, like an untried teenager just learning the pleasures his body could bring.

Or Barry could remain still, obedient, and listen to the blood singing in his ears. Feel the crackle of the lightning over his skin where they touch. Bask in the pride and love filtering back to him through the connection they share, as Eobard lays his hand over the red mark of his handprint, cool relief over the lingering sting.

_Good,_ Eobard says softly. _Such behavior deserves a reward._

He slides his hand back up Barry’s spine, leaning over Barry so closely that Barry can feel the heat of Eobard’s body, and turns off their connection.

Barry keens, immediately bereft. “Eobard!” he protests, remembering only at the last moment to do so aloud.

“I built something new recently,” Eobard purrs. “A reserve battery of sorts, for speed force energy. Would you like to see what it will let me do?”

Barry gulps.

It starts with one hand on Barry’s back, then two, returning to massaging the sore muscles caused by running and exertion. Eobard’s hands are firm but gentle, or maybe that’s just the endorphins talking; either way, their pressure is more pleasure than pain, and Barry moans under their assault. Moans harder when a hand snakes down around Barry’s hip, wraps around Barry’s cock and gives it a firm squeeze.

Except there are still two hands on Barry’s back. And then there’s a nudge between Barry’s cheeks, and a slick finger starts circling Barry’s hole.

Barry nearly jackknifes off the bed; only the fact that Eobard is still sitting on Barry’s legs prevents it, constraining Barry to an odd contortion that leaves him in an awkward mermaid pose, looking frantically around for the third person who isn’t in their bedroom. “What – how – ”

Eobard grins. Or at least Barry thinks he does. Eobard’s blurry around the edges, and all of a sudden Barry grasps it. There’s no third person, no extra hands: it’s all Eobard, simply moving so much faster than Barry that he can seem to be in two places at once.

“It’s called a speed mirage,” Eobard says, tone rich and warm even as it warbles around the edges with the effects of their mismatched speed. “I won’t be able to keep it up once you’re sufficiently aroused – ” speedsters, Barry very much included, tend to lose control of their connection to the speed force along with other forms of control – “but I thought you’d enjoy the extra attention.”

Now that Barry’s clear that it’s all coming from Eobard and not a mysterious uninvited third person? “Oh _yes_.”

Eobard urges Barry back down on the bed and resumes his wicked attentions. Barry closes his eyes and gives himself up to them entirely. He’s not consciously calling on the speed force at all, and Eobard is moving even faster than normal thanks to the battery. Which Barry will want to learn about, but oh, oh, God, _later…_

The discrepancy between their speeds is unusual, and exciting. Eobard and Barry have remained linked through the speed force almost constantly since Eobard had first fabricated the devices that permit it. Eobard’s connection to the speed force is damaged – damaged deliberately, in an act tantamount to maiming, by an earlier version of Barry who had been turned to darkness in the pursuit of his sick obsession with Iris West. The damage hadn’t been total, thank God. Eobard _can_ still tap into the speed force, but imperfectly; the amount he can draw on it varies irregularly, and the connection does sometimes go out entirely. Which would be bad enough, but that isn’t the worst part. The worst part is the way that the damaged connection causes constant nonphysical pain, both to Eobard and – though it’s hard to quantify exactly how – to the speed force itself.

But when Eobard and Barry are joined, Barry’s undamaged connection serves for them both. Barry can run as fast as Eobard. And Eobard is pain-free. The only downside is that they have to act in tandem, a minor quibble that they’ve worked around without issue for the past several months. It’s becoming second nature for Barry to keep a book handy to amuse himself at super-speed when Eobard needs to run somewhere, or for Eobard to work out an algorithm with Gideon to speed up playback of whatever music he has going in the lab in sync with however fast he’s going, so he can still sing along while Barry needs his speed. Eating, waking and sleeping, this tandem has been reality ever since Barry’s decision at the moment of paradox had created this timeline. To be free of it is… disconcerting. And surprisingly erotic.

Oh, who is Barry kidding? It’s _insanely_ erotic. Eobard has one finger in Barry’s ass, making him see stars as he expertly massages Barry’s prostate. Another hand is holding Barry’s cock in a firm grip, not stroking, not teasing, not doing anything but keeping him contained before and behind and generally making Barry feel utterly surrounded and held and cared for. And two hands – one and a half hands – are roaming all over Barry’s body, not restricting themselves any more to his back but also stroking his thighs, his shoulders, the back of his neck, down his arms…

It only feels like one hand roaming his body now. Barry’s aware that he’s sinking into the speed force, gradually, as the glorious wave of sensation begins to erode his control. The mirage is beginning to fade. Barry tries to catch his breath, tries to reinstate it – Eobard senses it, and the hand roaming Barry’s body delivers a firm slap to his ass.

“Don’t fight it,” Eobard says. The distortion in his voice is less as the difference between their speeds shrink. “The whole point is for you to let go.”

Barry can’t form the words to tell Eobard that if Barry were any _more_ let go he’d be gone. Every part of Barry’s body is alight and humming with pleasure, from the crown of his head, where Eobard briefly grips Barry’s hair and Barry arches into the touch, gasping, to the tips of Barry’s toes, curling against the low-friction sheets. The hand in Barry’s hair lets go, and then there’s not enough difference left in their speeds for Eobard to maintain the mirage. The illusion of the extra hands vanish. What’s left is overwhelming enough: the warm heavy weight of Eobard, kneeling over Barry’s thighs; the slim fingers spearing Barry open, working their magic deep inside; the firm grip on Barry’s cock, holding him teetering on the edge, preventing him from falling.

There’s lightning crackling in Barry’s vision. It will be dancing over his skin, too – discharging harmlessly against Eobard, as Eobard’s lightning is harmless to Barry. Barry can feel it, a delicious sting all over his body. He can imagine the picture they would make to an uninitiated observer: two blurs, scarlet and gold merged into brass, a lightning storm in a bedroom. Barry catches his breath against the image, the wild beauty his mind’s eye gives it. He wishes he could see. He reaches out through the speed force almost reflexively, seeking to see what Eobard sees, and nearly cries when his questing mind finds nothing but emptiness –

Eobard slides his fingers out of Barry. Replaces them with his cock. The hand around Barry’s cock firms, slides, and with the newly freed hand Eobard reaches up and runs his fingers over the quiescent device at the back of Barry’s neck –

Barry wails, hardly even noticing his orgasm. The stutter of his hips and the warm splash of semen against his belly fades into insignificance against the overwhelming reassurance of being able to feel Eobard again. Barry feels his physical body go limp against the sheets, lax and pliant in the wake of physical pleasure. He doesn’t try to stop it. All of his attention is on curling as close to Eobard as he can within the speed force, pressing them closer until the edges of them meet and begin to blur. This close Barry can feel Eobard’s sensations almost as if they’re his own. This close Barry can feed Eobard his own sensations, overwhelming Eobard – turnabout being fair play, between them, always and forever – until Eobard spills helplessly inside Barry on only his third thrust, gasping into Barry’s shoulder like Barry’s skin is the air Eobard breathes, and Barry doesn’t know what his dick may be capable of, but as far as his nervous system is concerned it’s like a second orgasm, echoing and amplifying between them until it’s too much to bear. Barry comes back to himself shuddering with the overstimulation. He burrows gratefully into Eobard’s arms when Eobard gets himself untangled enough to lay down next to Barry and offer the embrace.

_You are an evil genius,_ Barry tells him silently when he’s recovered enough to form words. _Please let’s not make a habit of it._

_You didn’t like it?_ There’s a complicated whirl of emotions from Eobard at that: surprise, doubt, a remembered flash of passion, dismay.

Barry gives him a gentle mental shove. _You know better than that,_ he scolds. Barry had once thought that their mental link would prevent these kinds of misunderstandings outright. Turns out Eobard’s capacity for self-doubt is greater than Barry had anticipated. _It was…_ words, even the mix of sensations and feelings that pass for words in the speed force, fail Barry. Instead Barry replays a section of the memory: a few seconds of the speed mirage, seconds that had stretched to minutes with the dilution in Barry’s perception, where Eobard had been everywhere surrounding Barry, holding Barry, taking care of him in every imaginable way. How supported, how loved that had made Barry feel.

Eobard lets out a breath that he would hate to hear Barry call a sob. His arms tighten around Barry. Barry just takes this as an excuse to burrow deeper. He likes to cuddle; so sue him.

_Then why say…?_ Eobard asks after a moment.

_Not every wonderful thing is best for every day,_ Barry tries to explain. _You can make me fall apart. I love that, but I have to be strong enough to bear it. I’m not, always. Sometimes it would hurt._

_It didn’t hurt this time,_ Eobard clarifies.

_No._

_Okay._

There’s a sense of meditation and intent thought swirling around in the sense of Eobard in the speed force now. He’s considering what Barry has said, turning his genius away from the mysteries of universal law and towards the mystery of Barry’s composition. Barry knows this mode. Eobard will analyze everything Barry has said or done or felt during their encounter, compare it to other encounters, and synthesize results. Over the next few days he’ll probably ask Barry seemingly-random questions that bear on some part or another of the mystery. The next times they have sex, there will probably be more questions, suggestions, an experiment or three.

Barry gives a mental shrug. That’s Eobard’s department. He’ll leave Eobard to it. And – he smiles to himself – the resulting sex will be _amazing_.

The pillows are soft. The sheets are dry; Eobard has slid them both over away from the wet spot, and the bed is large enough to accommodate them regardless. There’s a fluffy red comforter over Barry’s thighs. As Barry yawns again, Eobard tugs the white one up too, all the way up to Barry’s shoulders, just like Barry likes it. Barry makes a pleased sound, snuggling down beneath the petting hand Eobard slides into his hair. Eobard will take care of everything – Barry can relax.

_It’s a good thing you’re so pretty,_ Eobard murmurs to him, mock-offended, in no way concealing the fondness he feels.

_Better get my beauty sleep then,_ Barry yawns back, and promptly falls asleep, safe and warm and loved in Eobard’s arms.


End file.
